Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 232 / Tuesday, December 5, 2023 / Notices 84307 

Department of Commerce collections 

currently under review by OMB. 

Written comments and 

recommendations for the proposed 

information collection should be 

submitted within 30 days of the 

publication of this notice on the 

following website www.reginfo.gov/ 

public/do/PRAMain. Find this 

particular information collection by 

selecting ‘‘Currently under 30-day 

Review—Open for Public Comments’’ or 

by using the search function and 

entering either the title of the collection 

or the OMB Control Number 0648–0018. 

Sheleen Dumas, 

Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of 

the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, 

Commerce Department. 

[FR Doc. 2023–26674 Filed 12–4–23; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Submission to the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) for 

Review and Approval; Comment 

Request; West Coast Groundfish Trawl 

Economic Data 

The Department of Commerce will 

submit the following information 

collection request to the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) for 

review and clearance in accordance 

with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 

1995, on or after the date of publication 

of this notice. We invite the general 

public and other Federal agencies to 

comment on proposed, and continuing 

information collections, which helps us 

assess the impact of our information 

collection requirements and minimize 

the public’s reporting burden. Public 

comments were previously requested 

via the Federal Register on March 23, 

2023 during a 60-day comment period. 

This notice allows for an additional 30 

days for public comments. 

Agency: National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

Title: West Coast Groundfish Trawl 

Economic Data. 

OMB Control Number: 0648–0618. 

Form Number(s): None. 

Type of Request: Regular (extension of 

a currently approved information 

collection). 

Number of Respondents: 361. 

Average Hours per Response: 8 hours 

for catcher processors, catcher vessels, 

and motherships, 1 hour for quota share 

permit owners, and 20 hours for first 

receivers and shore-based processors. 

Total Annual Burden Hours: 2,236. 

Needs and Uses: This request is for 

revision and renewal of a currently 

approved information collection. This 

information collection is needed in 

order to meet the monitoring 

requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens 

Act (MSA). In particular, the Northwest 

Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) 

needs economic data on all harvesters, 

quota share permit owners, first 

receivers, shore-based processors, 

catcher processors, and motherships 

participating in the West Coast 

groundfish trawl fishery. Data will be 

collected from all catcher vessels 

registered to a limited entry trawl 

endorsed permit, quota share permit 

owners, catcher processors registered to 

catcher processor permits, motherships 

registered to mothership permits, first 

receivers, and shore based processors 

that received round or head-and-gutted 

IFQ groundfish or whiting from a first 

receiver to provide the necessary 

information for analyzing the effects of 

the West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch 

Share Program. 

Changes are being proposed to three 

forms: the quota share owner form, the 

first receiver and shore-based processor 

form, and the catcher vessel form. Two 

changes are proposed for the quota 

share owner form. First, the question ‘‘Is 

this permit owned solely by a nonprofit?’’ will be removed from the 

survey as it was determined that 

sufficient information is available from 

other sources to make this question 

redundant. The second proposed change 

is to replace the survey’s third question 

with a series of shorter questions 

guiding the participant to provide the 

correct information. This change will 

clarify which information should be 

reported for each type of respondent 

and will reduce the need for lengthy 

instructions section describing how the 

participant should answer. The series of 

questions are: 

A. ‘‘Which types of quota transactions 

were associated with QSXXXX in 20XX? 

Check all that apply’’ This question 

helps the participant determine whether 

any earnings need to be reported on the 

survey. If appropriate categories are 

checked, they will be asked question B. 

B. ‘‘How much did this quota share 

account earn from leasing quota in year 

20XX?’’ Participants will answer this 

question with a dollar amount. To 

ensure there is no duplicate reporting, 

participants will be asked question C: 

C. ‘‘Did you record any earnings from 

20XX quota leasing on an EDC form?’’ 

If participants answer ‘‘No,’’ they will 

be prompted to affirm that their 

response to question B was correct and 

submit the survey. If they answer ‘‘Yes,’’ 

they will be asked to respond to 

question D. 

D. ‘‘How much in quota lease earnings 

did you record on your EDC form(s)? 

Participants will answer with a 

numerical value and proceed to 

question E. 

E. ‘‘Please confirm your total quota 

lease earnings in 20XX was ‘Response to 

question B + ‘Response to question D.’ 

After confirming, participants will then 

submit the survey. 

We anticipate no additional burden 

with this change because the new 

structure of the survey will generate 

fewer incorrect responses and survey 

administrators will no longer need to 

contact participants outside of the 

survey to confirm that they did not 

provide duplicate responses across 

survey forms. 

First receiver and shore-based 

processor form changes are more 

extensive. The purpose of the changes is 

fivefold: remove requests for 

information that are not used in 

development of a Pacific Fishery 

Management Council Fishery 

Management Plan, consolidate 

questions where additional detail is no 

longer required, clarify handling of 

intercompany transfers and inventory, 

collect more accurate information about 

hourly wages, obtain information about 

services provided by first receivers to 

vessels. 

First, we propose a complete removal 

of Question 18: ‘‘Provide the following 

information about the landing origin of 

groundfish received at this facility.’’ 

Throughout the eleven years of the 

program, these data have not been used 

in the Council process and we do not 

anticipate using this information in the 

future. 

Second, we propose consolidating the 

fishery-level detail requests from 

Question 19: ‘‘Fish Received. In the 

table below provide the weight and cost 

of fish received.’’ For groundfish 

species, the existing form requests 

weight not paid for, weight paid for, and 

cost of fish by species group for three 

fisheries (LE Trawl, LE Fixed Gear, and 

Other) as well as Non-vessel sources. In 

the revised form, the table will be 

consolidated to only request Vessel 

sources and Non-vessel sources. This 

will be a net reduction of 72 data entry 

cells on the form (12 species groups × 

removal of 2 fisheries × 3 fields). We 

will no longer request this information 

because fishery-detail information can 

be obtained from other sources. 

Third, we propose revising how 

intercompany transfers and inventory 

are reported on the form. Similar to the 


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84308 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 232 / Tuesday, December 5, 2023 / Notices 

quota share owner survey, there are 

extensive instructions on handling these 

two topics, but reporting errors are 

extremely common. To facilitate 

accurate reporting of intercompany 

transfers, we will remove a column 

dedicated to transfer information from 

Question 19 and remove instructions 

about recording transfers in Question 

20. Then, all of the transfer-related 

information will be moved to a separate 

question/table. This change will make 

the survey instructions easier to 

understand, allow companies that do 

not have intercompany transfers to skip 

the question entirely, and will make it 

easier to detect and remedy mistakes. 

Similarly, there are extensive 

instructions on how to record inventory 

in Question 20 on the existing form, but 

no dedicated field for inventory. 

Instead, participants are currently 

instructed to add inventory to the other 

sales categories. We propose adding a 

new line for each species group to 

record the inventory volume and value. 

Similar to the changes to transfers in 

Question 19 and 20, the new structure 

of Question 20 clarifies how to complete 

the form and facilitates identifying and 

resolving errors. Finally, this change 

will provide new important information 

about inventory volumes across years, 

providing better information about the 

status of the processing sector to the 

Pacific Fishery Management Council. 

A common performance metric for 

fisheries programs is hourly wage 

payments to processing workers. In the 

current form, we request the total 

number of workers and total hours 

worked for the week that includes the 

12th of each month and total annual 

compensation payments. To calculate 

hourly wages, we must extrapolate to 

the total hours worked for the year. 

Through conversations with 

participants, it has become apparent 

that within-month employment can 

have high variability and our 

extrapolations are not always accurate. 

We propose requesting the equivalent 

compensation value for each of the oneweek windows to allow for a more 

accurate calculation of hourly wages. 

This additional field will also allow us 

to generate an estimate of within-month 

employment variability. 

Lastly, through conversations with 

first receivers and vessels, it is known 

that first receivers provide services to 

vessels such as bait, ice, loans, moorage, 

and storage. We plan to add a new 

category to capture whether those 

services are provided and whether the 

vessels are charged for those services. 

This information will help answer 

questions often posed by external 

reviewers when evaluating studies 

conducted using the data collected in 

these surveys. 

There are two proposed changes to 

the Catcher Vessel survey form. The first 

is to remove two questions. In 2018, at 

the request of participants in the trawl 

catch share program, two additional 

questions were added, Question 17: ‘‘Do 

you track capitalized expenditures and 

expenses on fishing gear by type (e.g., 

midwater trawl gear, groundfish bottom 

trawl gear)?’’ and Question 18: ‘‘Provide 

the 2021 total capitalized expenditures 

and expenses associated with each type 

of fishing gear used in West Coast 

Fisheries (Washington, Oregon, and 

California).’’ Since the implementation 

of the questions in 2018, there has only 

been one ‘‘Yes’’ out nearly 700 total 

responses to Question 17 and therefore 

no further information about gearspecific costs have been collected. 

Therefore, there will be no information 

loss associated with removal of these 

two questions and there may be a small 

reduction in total burden hours. 

The second proposed change to the 

Catcher vessel survey form also applies 

to the Catcher Processor and Mothership 

forms. This change adds a four-part 

question about vessel financing. The 

questions are whether there were any 

loans on the vessel, how much was still 

owed at the end of the fiscal year, total 

amount paid to interest, and total 

amount paid to principal. The purpose 

of this new question is to collect the 

necessary information to comply with 

recent NOAA fisheries guidance on 

calculation of net returns of fishing 

businesses. 

Affected Public: Business or other forprofit organizations; not-for-profit 

institutions. 

Frequency: Annually. 

Respondent’s Obligation: Mandatory. 

Legal Authority: 50 CFR 660.114. 

This information collection request 

may be viewed at www.reginfo.gov. 

Follow the instructions to view the 

Department of Commerce collections 

currently under review by OMB. 

Written comments and 

recommendations for the proposed 

information collection should be 

submitted within 30 days of the 

publication of this notice on the 

following website www.reginfo.gov/ 

public/do/PRAMain. Find this 

particular information collection by 

selecting ‘‘Currently under 30-day 

Review—Open for Public Comments’’ or 

by using the search function and 

entering either the title of the collection 

or the OMB Control Number 0648–0618. 

Sheleen Dumas, 

Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of 

the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, 

Commerce Department. 

[FR Doc. 2023–26661 Filed 12–4–23; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Defense Acquisition Regulations 

System 

[Docket Number DARS–2023–0017; OMB 

Control Number 0704–0246] 

Information Collection Requirements; 

Defense Federal Acquisition 

Regulation Supplement; Part 245, 

Government Property 

AGENCY: Defense Acquisition 

Regulations System, Department of 

Defense (DoD). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The Defense Acquisition 

Regulations System has submitted to 

OMB for clearance the following 

proposal for collection of information 

under the provisions of the Paperwork 

Reduction Act. 

DATES: Consideration will be given to all 

comments received by January 4, 2024. 

ADDRESSES: Written comments and 

recommendations for the proposed 

information collection should be sent 

within 30 days of publication of this 

notice to https://www.reginfo.gov/ 

public/do/PRAMain. Find this 

particular information collection by 

selecting ‘‘Currently under 30-day 

Review—Open for Public Comments’’ or 

by using the search function. 

You may also submit comments, 

identified by docket number and title, 

by the following method: Federal 

eRulemaking Portal: https://

www.regulations.gov. Follow the 

instructions for submitting comments. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Angela Duncan, 571–372–7574, or 

whs.mc-alex.esd.mbx.dd-dodinformation-collections@mail.mil. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Title and OMB Number: Defense 

Federal Acquisition Regulation 

Supplement (DFARS) Part 245, 

Government Property, related clauses in 

DFARS 252, and related forms in 

DFARS 253; OMB Control Number 

0704–0246. 

Type of Request: Revision of a 

currently approved collection. 

Affected Public: Businesses or other 

for-profit and not-for-profit institutions. 


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